PRIVACY RIGHTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY / A brief history of surveillance

New York Times

Published
4:00 am PST, Saturday, December 17, 2005

HISTORY

Created in 1952, the National Security Agency is the biggest American intelligence agency, with more than 30,000 employees at Fort Meade, Md., and listening posts around the world. Part of the Defense Department, it is the successor to the State Department's "Black Chamber" and American military eavesdropping and code-breaking operations that date to the early days of telegraph and telephone communications.

MISSION

The NSA runs the eavesdropping hardware of the American intelligence system, operating a huge network of satellites and listening devices around the world. Traditionally, its mission has been to gather intelligence overseas on foreign enemies by breaking codes and tapping into telephone and computer communications.

SUCCESSES

Most of the agency's successes remain secret, but a few have been revealed. The agency listened to Soviet pilots and ground controllers during the shooting down of a civilian South Korean airliner in 1983; traced a disco bombing in Berlin in 1986 to Libya through diplomatic messages; and, more recently, used the identifying chips in cell phones to track terrorist suspects after the 2001 attacks.

DOMESTIC ACTIVITY

The disclosure in the 1970s of widespread surveillance of political dissenters and other civil rights abuses led to restrictions on the use of domestic wiretaps by the NSA and other entities. The NSA monitors U.N. delegations and some foreign embassy lines on American soil, but it is generally prohibited from listening in on the conversations of anyone inside the country without a special court order.

OFFICIAL RULES

Since the reforms of the late 1970s, the NSA generally has been permitted to monitor the communications of people on U.S. soil only if they are believed to be "agents of a foreign power" -- another nation or an international terrorist group -- and a warrant is obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

EXPANDED ROLE

Months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush signed a secret executive order that relaxed restrictions on domestic spying by the NSA, according to officials with knowledge of the order. The order allows the agency to monitor, without warrants, the international phone calls and e-mail messages of some Americans and others inside the United States.